Ideas, some bright, from my classroom.

The chuck-it bucket: choosing your enduring understandings

Really want to plan a tight unit with the most focused and realistic amount of material possible? Try this exercise:

1. Grab a sheet of paper and a pen.
2. Grab the vocabulary list for your upcoming unit (or use your memory list).
3. Draw a large circle (half the page) right in the center.
4. Draw a smaller circle (2/3 size-ish) inside the circle but near the bottom not the center.
5. Repeat #4 making a smaller circle inside the 2/3 size one.
6. Below your concentric circles, draw a large-ish circle in the lower left corner.
7. Label your circles: large is “useful”, medium is “necessary”, and small is “for life”. The guy in the corner is “chuck-it bucket.”

Now that you have your graphic organizer, take your list and really focus on it…. Be realistic, what on this list is a) honestly engaging for your class and b) useful for them in the future (real life language not classroom speak). Go through the list word by word and place them in categories. The smallest circle is the inner sanctum. Nothing goes there unless it will benefit those students for the rest of their lives as language speakers! Ex. Tenía que or no puedo (i/he/she had to, I can’t). The medium circle is for things that they will probably need to use often. Ex. Mientras, así que, entonces (while, so, then) the big circle is for things they should recognize if they see or hear them but they’re more like bonus words, the kids could get by with or without them. (Ex. Basic clothes, foods, colors). The chuck-it may (should) be the fullest. These are things that we teach robotically because we have always done it but that have no value to a student wanting and needing to communicate in the TL! Ex. Household chores, things in their backpack, items in the classroom. If you have to do these for a district assessment, try to think of a quick and clever way to memorize and move on to more important things.

Now that you’re looking at the list in perspective, plan ways to use the TL (90% if you can) to hit those items in the small circle every day, the medium circle often, and the large circle enough for recognition. Chuck can be for extra credit or just a trash can to hold things that are NOT high frequency.

Try to imagine the ways your kids may be using this new language in the future. Have you told them that being a language teacher is only one of a million ways the L2 can be part of their career? I think we mistakenly teach these lists anticipating the kids that will use their language to be teachers. Don’t fall into that trap! Make the language personal to all of them! The teacher types will pick up every word anyway, it’s the others who we can woo! Make a generation of bilingual doctors and lawyers and scientists and engineers! That is how we will truly change people’s views on the importance of learning language!!!

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